


slow pony home

by geoclaire



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Backstory, F/F, Fluff, and backstory, and some supernatural stuff, bc let's be real there's something going on, but there is, idek what, the means by which nicole haught became smitten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 11:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geoclaire/pseuds/geoclaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the process by which Nicole Haught saw, met, adored and learned about Waverly Earp, not necessarily in that order. And the things her mother said about it.</p><p>Nicole backstory and between the scenes for 1.01-1.11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	slow pony home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isawet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isawet/gifts), [dance_tilyouredead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_tilyouredead/gifts).



> And all this time, I felt just fine  
> I held so many people in my suitcase heart  
> that i had to let the whole thing go  
> it was taken by the wind and snow  
> and i still didn't know that i was waiting  
> for a girl  
> on a slow pony home

   If someone had asked her, Nicole Haught couldn’t have said who or what she’d been expecting when she’d dragged herself out of bed at one forty-seven am and limped her way to her front door. Her shift had ended at eight, and she’d spent what was left of the evening attached to her tv and her phone, hoping for a spontaneous text from Waverly. There hadn’t been one before she’d gone to bed at eleven, and she’d limited herself to a simple goodnight text, wishing Waverly well.

   So, no, after the simplicity of that evening she was not expecting to be woken from a heavy sleep at one forty-five by the repeated ring of her doorbell. She wasn’t on call and no one would have come to her door anyway. But if anyone had asked, she would have confirmed that the last thing she had expected was Waverly Earp herself, her hair a mess and dressed in what Nicole reasonably assumed were her pyjamas. She stared at the tiny penguin print on the flannelette pants far longer than she meant to, her brain catching up.

   “Ummm, hi,” she mumbled. Waverly’s sleep shirt was a long sleeved tshirt, the boat neck draping dangerously low over the curve of her breasts. She stifled a yawn. “Was I expecting…?”

   “No, but…” Waverly was twisting her hands, her hair loose over her shoulders and uncharacteristically dishevelled. “Can I come in?”

   Nicole blinked twice, trying to wake herself up enough to do the math. Waverly Earp was standing on her front porch in her pyjamas. Waverly Earp was asking to come in, looking unaccustomedly distressed.

   “Definitely,” she said, and pulled the door wide. Waverly slipped over the doorstep and past her in her usual quick way, the scent of her hair and clothes wafting around her as she did. Nicole suppressed her yawn and reached to close the door with her foot, fumbling her hair into hopeful presentability as she did so. “Living room’s this way, you want some tea? Or like… whiskey?”

 

* * *

 

 

   It was her third week in Purgatory when Nicole woke up from an impromptu nap, face down on the couch with her cat lying between her shoulder blades, and realised that between night shifts, unpacking the four boxes she’d brought back from the academy, and the new town, she hadn’t spoken to anyone outside of police business since she’d arrived in town. She winced, rolling off the couch slowly to let Calamity Jane work her way onto the cushions, and thought about calling her mother.

   Mama laughed in her ear, of course. “Well, you got so darn good at meeting people in the city, Nicky. You forget how once you come back to a small town?”

   “No, Mama. I just… I think it’s different coming someplace new when it’s small, you know?”

   Her mother snorted. “Ain’t hardly different. Purgatory’s not fifty miles from home.”

   “I know.”

   “Well, if you can’t think of anything else, you might as well join some sportin’ team. You always was good at basketball, and all the boys like that.”

   “I know, Mama. I will.”

   The one gym in town didn’t have a women’s basketball competition, but it did have a range of sports classes. Nicole eyed off the collection of flyers on the wall, considering the schedules, and ended up signing up for a mixed yoga class on Monday nights. She was the town rookie, and she couldn’t commit to making the team practices for anything else, but she’d also consistently scored the Sunday night speed trap on the road into town every week since she’d started, and any overnighter legally had to be followed up by a night off. She figured she was good for the foreseeable future.

 

* * *

 

 

   That weekend was apparently a rodeo spectacular, some kind of weekend long celebration that let all the cowboys in town – and all the men who just wore cowboy boots – to go along and get all their testosterone out. Saturday night she’d backed up Sergeant Manning while he’d been the lead, pulling over suspected drunk drivers until two, but Sunday had been just her and the speed gun, clocking every cowboy wannabe throttling it home. The way they drove, you’d think they had somewhere to be; someplace other than sliding into cold bedsheets or being yelled at by their wives when they inevitably woke their children, banging open the door.

   After that she’d spent Monday afternoon asleep, in the bed this time rather than the couch, and she’d slept deeply enough that the alarm an hour before her class had thrown into a sense of deep confusion. She was still in that half dopey state, stretching her legs out slowly on a mat at the back of the room, when a tiny whirlwind in a sports bra and tights bounced in and greeted the teacher by name before taking a mat in the front row.  

   Nicole’d taken yoga in her first year at the academy, building strength and flexibility to help her running her timed miles, and she knew her warrior stance from her inversions, but this girl was something else. Her alignment was on point, her sun salute strong, her flexibility downright enviable if possibly suggestive. Only her balance poses were less than perfect, with a tendency to wobble. Nicole was directly behind her, and struggling with the instructions, or she’d never have noticed – but she found herself looking to the girl every time she didn’t quite understand what the instructor meant, and then a few times besides.

   The next week she moved forward a mat, not immediately behind the girl but close enough to admire her form. That week she was suffering a bruised thigh, the result of a call out that had included not a burglar but a bolted horse, and Nicole was sore and moving slower. She found herself watching the girl during her down times, admiring the swing of her so very long ponytail and the muscles in her arms. It was enough to make a lonely lesbian bite her lip, and the following week she moved to a mat on the far side of the room and stayed there.

   A month later the instructor was out sick, and the girl was leading the class. Her name was Waverly, and she pronounced the Sanskrit name of every pose with perfect diction. She offered corrections in the softest of voices and let her fingers trace over Nicole’s tricep when she adjusted her arm in the warrior series.

 

* * *

 

 

   She hadn’t always had the cat. In fact, she’d barely had the cat at all – it had turned up in her hallway while she was packin’ boxes before leaving for Purgatory, and wouldn’t leave. Eventually, she’d fed it, because that was the kind of thing you did when you were leaving town in six days and had food to get rid of in your fridge, and were a sucker to boot. When she’d left, it was a choice between taking the cat and letting the landlord blame her for having an unauthorised pet, and so she’d wound up with an unexpected nine pounds of feline and an offensively priced bed in the back of her car alongside her clothes.

   “Going to Purrgatory,” she’d told the still unnamed cat, which had promptly yawned in her face. “Oh, thank you very much. That’s my best work, missy, so don’t go getting your hopes up.”

   Her mother had opinions about cats, largely that they were for keeping down rodents, and so Nicole didn’t tell her about the stray inviting itself into her life. Still, her mother had a way of finding out, and after that conversation Nicole had sorted out kitty litter and a flea collar in short order.

   “If she turns me down at least it won’t be ‘cause I got fleas,” she told the cat, now dubbed Riley, as she stood in front of her mirror. “Now, how many buttons d’you think I can reasonably leave open?”

   The cat yawned, and she tutted in response.

   “Well I know there’s regulations, but it’ll only be for a minute. I can button up again after if you’re so worried.” She looked in the mirror again, wondering if she should redo her hair, if the strictness of the regulation French braid left her looking overbearing. Loosening it might make her seem more approachable, but her hat’d mess it up anyway, and… she sighed, leaning her weight onto her hands on the dresser.

   “Who’m I kidding, she ain’t going to turn me down because of my hair, Riley. That’d be a host of other reasons.”

   _“Well, you ain’t ever going to know if you don’t try. Ain’t even a person in this town knows your name, Nicky,”_ said her mother’s voice in her head, and she sighed again and shrugged before picking up her hat.

   “Well alright then. At least she’ll know my name.”

 

* * *

 

 

   Introducing herself went both better and worse than she’d dared hope. Because getting Waverly Earp outta her shirt hadn’t been in the plan, and neither was her having a boyfriend.

   Worse, now Nicole knew about the boyfriend, she saw him everywhere. If she were honest she’d seen him before, pickin’ up Waverly after her shift at Shorty’s while Nicole patrolled the main street at two am, but she’d steadfastly ignored the possibility because Waverly Earp deserved a better boyfriend than the lad she’d seen picking up other girls around town. Better than a boy who was regularly a half hour late to pick her up her yoga class, better’n a boy who didn’t remember to return her library books or to bring her jacket to the door of the studio.

   Still, at least now Waverly knew her name, she would acknowledge her when they met in public. She’d smile when she caught her eye at the start of the yoga class, or when she saw Nicole across the street – she’d promptly forgotten what she was doing and had to rewrite an entire parking ticket, a genuine rookie error, but a small price to pay – even, after glancing down and away and blushing scarlet, in the backroom of the station with Agent Dolls, a man whose game Nicole simply couldn’t yet work out, though she meant to. For one thing, he seemed to forget that his office backed onto the station bullpen, and since Nicole’d earned a desk in the most crowded back corner of the room, she could frequently hear fragments of the conversations he held with Wynonna – a sister more unlike Waverly it was hard to imagine – and occasionally Waverly’s own softer tones.

   She was pretty sure Waverly hung out in there on her own sometimes. It seemed like for her, it might well be the most private place in town, because any time Nicole saw her in public (and that now seemed to happen multiple times a _day_ ) she was always with someone else. Whether it was at the public library, where she’d heard rumours Waverly alone had access to twice the usual loan limit, or in Shorty’s, where she appeared to genuinely _be_ everyone’s favourite bartender, or even just on the street, where Nicole’d honest to God seen her help an old lady cross the street, she was never alone. 

   In the Black Badge office, though, no one seemed to bother her. Not drunken customers, not friendly neighbors, not even her boyfriend, since apparently no one else was even allowed through the door (Nicole still smarted from the dressing down she’d received the one time she’d brought in Dolls’ mail; she wouldn’t be doing that again in a hurry). Nicole’d see Waverly heading in their door first thing in the morning, a dozen books in her arms, and not see her again before the end of her own shift. From time to time she thought of sendin’ in a search party, or just some damn lunch if it wouldn’t have been too obvious a sign. Apparently Waverly didn’t share her sister’s fondness for hot sauce, something Nicole’d heard vaguely complained about through the wall.

   No, Waverly Earp deserved better than Champ Hardy, better’n a boy who seemed to care more about her belly baring shirts than the way she spoke six languages and apologised when she renewed her library books.

 

* * *

 

 

   ‘Course, her mama had an opinion on that. Looking down on a boy was one thing – her mama’d been doing that her whole life – but if she wanted to be better than him, she oughta use that as a kick in the pants to be a better suitor than him.

   Nicole thought that over for a few days. She figured bein’ more appreciative of Waverly than Champ was one thing, and not half hard to accomplish, but she sure had incentive to be doing more than that. She had no chance of catching up with Waverly on languages – for God’s sakes, she’d heard the girl chanting Latin, something she’d only recognised from having Italian half beaten into her in junior school – but there were other things she could try.

   The cat didn’t think much of her the first three times she burnt dinner, and there was nothing like a cat for silent scorn. The fourth time, though, the roast chicken and vegetables came out of the oven smelling like glory incarnate, and Riley couldn’t curl around her legs fast enough, purring up a storm the whole time. Nicole put the tray on the counter and looked at it, seeing one hell of a meal but also a week’s worth of chicken sandwiches.

   She shrugged. “Well, I just hope she isn’t a vegetarian, Riles. Practice is one thing but I am not on top of vegetarianism yet.”

   It seemed unlikely, Purgatory being beef country, but she made a mental note to check. Besides, she was pretty sure Waverly ate at the bar most nights. At any rate, she never seemed to see her at any of the handful of takeaway joints she’d necessarily become a frequenter of, courtesy of shift work. She looked down at the chicken again.

   “Think she’d be impressed with this, Riles? I would be.”

   The cat meowed what Nicole liked to think was agreement. She put some dripping in her bowl in appreciation, and got back to her other task of the evening – looking over case files. Because trying to impress ladies with her cooking was one thing, but then there was also the fact that she was a rookie cop and needed to impress her boss. Since she liked to believe she was a good person, she steadfastly ignored the voice at the back of her mind that suggested being good at her job was probably another easy way to outshine one Hardy Champ.

    And the thing was that the case just didn’t make a lot of sense. Three dead women parked on the outskirts of Purgatory, nothing in common between them except the way they died. She sighed, getting herself a finger of whiskey to go with her plate of chicken and gravy. All three of them had been cut open, their insides removed and then replaced without a sign of struggle on any of them – which spoke to her of drugs, something the autopsy reports she’d snuck out of the office didn’t cover. She wrinkled her nose at the quality of the reports, the handwriting barely distinguishable from crayon scrawling. If they had a serial killer on their hands – and honestly, what were the chances in a town the size of Purgatory? – they weren’t going to find him without improving the quality of their autopsy reports. This one didn’t give her a damn thing to go on, except that the women appeared to have only died once their hearts were removed. She winced, and absently put her cutlery down.

   She’d be less worried, but in truth Purgatory seemed to have far too many of this kind of crime for its size. Not brutal murders, necessarily, but weird events, unusual crimes, strangely motivated incidents that never seemed to quite be explained to her satisfaction. And far too many of them disappeared off her desk before she’d managed to complete even the most basic of investigations.

    And she had a real solid guess on whose desk they reappeared on.

 

* * *

 

 

   There was more than one reason to invite Wynonna into the office, of course. And that was ignoring the fact that Wynonna’d more or less invited herself in along with her bottle. Nicole’d barely had to do anything to get her in there, only bemoan the party it turned out neither of ‘em had been invited to, and in a trice she had the two of them sitting on her floor sharing that bottle.

   She’d been lying if she said it was her plan, but there were advantages to being on Wynonna’s good side. For example, the likelihood of access to some of what went on in the Black Badge office, something she did not want to be leaning on Waverly for. Also, the possibility of a decent relationship with Wynonna, who appeared to be a decent woman in need of some local defenders. Finally – well, she’d be lying if she said she weren’t looking for a better relationship with Waverly’s sister than Champ Hardy had.

   But police business superceded all that, and once she’d got through a minor case of hurt feelings – seriously, did everyone in town but her get invited to this party of Waverly’s? not a person that day seemed to not be mentioning it, even if most of them were amazed at Waverly’s choice of venue – sharing information with Wynonna seemed to be her best chance of finding another lead on the bizarre murders plaguing Purgatory.

   Gettin’ a little drunk with Wynonna hadn’t been in the plan, but Nicole was starting ta have the feeling that a little drunk was Wynonna’s default state of being. Having someone play silly buggers about the office and interfering with the girl’s body – definitely not in the plan, and Nicole started having regrets even before Wynonna’d come out of nowhere, accusing her of being involved with whoever had messed with the poor girl.

   She’d only wanted to get a grip on the weirdness perpetually plaguing Purgatory. And instead she’d messed up police property, gotten thoroughly spooked, and then had her head bitten off by Wynonna, right before she’d taken a call and gone storming out of the office with a face like thunder.

   When the call came in from the Earp homestead a few hours later, she wasn’t even surprised.

 

* * *

 

 

   It had been so long since she’d been small enough for someone to carry her that she didn’t recognise the sensation until later – only hung upside down, nauseous and aching and bewildered through the flashes of light and awareness. He’d hit her that hard while she was still reaching for her gun, trying to stop him getting hold of another weapon…

   The cold sunk through her like fingers, snow soaking through her jacket and pants in what must have been minutes. Curled in a ball around her ribs, she tried to stop the bleeding, half grateful to be there when it meant the endless sickening lurch of his footsteps were over. But her fingers were so cold, stinging where her ring leeched away her warmth, every piece of metal on her seeming to strip the little heat she retained, and she was so tired.

   Sleeping in the snow was a death sentence, and so she crawled as far as she could back toward the road before the ringing wave of exhaustion rocked through her again, the stab of her ribs in her side stealing her breath with every movement. It stole her momentum, too, and she lay down far too soon, not able to get onto the road itself. But far enough that perhaps, if she were lucky, they might find her.

   She dreamed. In the cold, in the ditch, her blood seeping away.

   Her mother said, “Now really, is that the best you can do for yourself? You’re not real good at saving the day, Nicky Haught. That girl didn’t even need you, and her sister lied to your face.”

   _I know_ , she tried to say, but there was dirt and snow in her mouth.

   Her mother patted her hair, a warm presence beside her in the cold air. “You don’t always have to come ridin’ to the rescue, Nicky. Sometimes you might do better saving your own darn self.” She paused, and Nicole knew the way she cocked her head, all too familiar with it. “Now, stir yourself, girl. Someone’s coming, and that girl Wynonna is missing, and you’re goin' freeze out here if you wait much longer.”

  

* * *

 

 

   In the hospital no one would answer her questions, and no one seemed to know what had happened to Wynonna. Nedley’d updated her as he could, after she’d told Dolls everything she could remember about her attacker, but that was the last thing for hours and her aching head seemed to echo with the sound of Waverly’s sobs in the hallway. So much for being better for her than Champ, she mused bitterly through the cloud of painkillers and anti-nausea meds. Far as she knew, he’d never gotten Waverly’s sister killed.

   She was halfway through a drug fuelled fantasy of skipping town and taking off as a cowgirl, ducking her responsibilities and her mother’s disapproval, when Nedley finally came by again. By the scratch on his arm and the duffel bag he held gracelessly at his side, he’d been by her place. But that wasn’t what he wanted to tell her about.

   “They found the Earp girl. Dolls and his special division, whatever it is they all get up to, they seem alright at finding things. Said your information helped.” He paused, hovering by the bed, and she stared at the bag he carried, more glad than ever she’d followed the letter of police protocol and had a change of clothes and toiletries packed ahead of time. “You did well, Deputy.”

   “Thank you, sir,” she answered, and he patted her arm stiffly.

   “That Wynonna’s always found trouble, Nicole. Don’t you go blaming yourself about what happened.”

   “No sir.”

   “Weird things just follow the Earp family about, they always have. Although Waverly, there’s a girl who’s made something of what she’s got. Especially now she’s rid of that Hardy boy.”

   Nicole looked up, but Nedley was very deliberately looking away from her, making no eye contact as he wandered over to drop her bag of things on a chair in the corner of the room.

   “The Hardy boy, sir? Champ?”

   Nedley nodded, his eyes now on the rumpled hospital corners at the end of the bed. “Seems Waverly worked out she could do a little better than that sack of hair. D’you know he failed the police entrance exam four times?”

   “No sir,” she answered, breathless from something besides her cracked ribs. “I didn’t know that.”

   He harrumphed, looking past her and to the door. “Well, he did.” He paused, picking up his hat from where he’d left it by the door. “Get better, Nicole.”

   “Yes sir.” She answered, and only when he’d left did she remember to exhale and lean back against her pillows. 

 

* * *

 

 

   With busted ribs, yoga was out, and that meant with her mandated days off work, she didn’t have an easy excuse to see Waverly now that her sister was back and presumably safe. She’d badgered the details out of another of the deputies – and what were the odds she and Wynonna would wander direct in the path of a serial killer? – and now had nothing to do at home but brood. Oh, and use her new-found cooking skills to make oatmeal, the only thing she could stand up long enough to make without getting’ dizzy.

   That Waverly’d left Champ was an unmitigated good, in her book. Waverly deserved better than a boy-man who couldn’t pass a written exam based on minimal understanding of the law and morality, and far better than the territory claiming bullshit she’d seen the night of Shorty’s death, the overt affection and pawing at her. Better than a boy who’d stake a claim in front of competition but couldn’t seem to manage to be by his girlfriend’s side when she was sad, would let her cry in a public park behind the station.

   That didn’t mean anything about her intentions or plans for the future, and it didn’t mean anything about Nicole. Because sure, Waverly’d been worried at the hospital – but it wasn’t like she’d come back, either, once she knew Wynonna was safe.

   Even if she’d probably thought Nicole’d been discharged already.

   Nicole dropped her face into her hands – carefully avoiding the stitches above her eye – and groaned.

   “Nicky, you think about that girl far too much,” was her mother’s response. “Now either you get going and do somethin’ or you quit your belly achin’ about it.”

 

* * *

 

 

   Doing somethin’ about it didn’t exactly go to plan, not after Nedley handed her back her ass with her report.

   After that, her head was a mess and she’d completely misunderstood what it was Waverly had wanted to talk about. When she’d realised, so much later… far too late to be of any help to Waverly, not with the crisis of faith she’d tried so hard to tell Nicole she was having… she actually kicked herself, because after all this time this girl was telling her exactly what she wanted to hear, and she’d fucked it up by being an asshole.

   And so she’d gone out to apologise, and been on the receiving end of one of the more humiliating “just friends” speeches she’d heard in her life.

   Her chest hurt, and she put her hand to the fractured ribs, like that was going to help.

 

* * *

 

 

    She was revisiting that cowgirl fantasy when Waverly Earp had come busting back into the police station. Sure, moving mighta seemed like a saner move, but there were rules about transferring within two years of being assigned as a rookie, and she didn’t see how she was getting around those. Riley could ride around on her saddle, she reasoned. She was sure she’d seen that in a movie once.

   Then Waverly’d come bursting through the door like fireworks, bright and glorious and rockin’ her in her boots, and she’d actually had to catch her when the girl launched herself up into her face, her mouth, her arms.

   Not that she was complainin’, you understand. Not when Waverly’s tentative hands had wrapped around her face, then her hair; not when her mouth was open and sweet; not when Nicole’d wrapped her legs around her own waist and rocked down real slow.

   Waverly’s hands had gone around her shoulders, clutching at the muscle there, and Nicole thought that grip alone was enough to hold her in this town.

 

* * *

 

 

   The cut over her eye had healed remarkably quickly, but her ribs still hurt, and Nicole stood at her window with a glass of whiskey while her three-hat oatmeal bubbled on the stove. On the second floor at the far end of the main street, her window let her look out over the main area of town. An hour earlier, she would have been able to see the last of the girls – women, really – from the commune leaving the police station. Now, with that done and snow falling, there was little activity on the main street.

   She let her mind drift. There was all the strangeness of the women, their long hair and strange mannerisms, and there was John Henry’s inability to drive. Something about Wynonna’s gun – and what _was_ with that gun? – and then there was Waverly. Her skin under her fingertips, their hips pressed together; Waverly’s smile beneath her own right before they’d so nearly kissed. She sighed, swallowing a mouthful of her drink, and turned back to the room to rescue her oatmeal.

   “I think that girl’s trouble,” her mother said. Nicole knew without seeing it how the corners of her mouth would be tight, on the boundary of turning down. “There’s a lot of strange in this town, and that girl and her sister always seem square in the middle of it.”

   “That ain’t fair, Mama,” she answered softly, and her mother snorted.

   “You got kidnapped alongside that Wynonna by a serial killer, and now she happens to stumble over a houseful of abducted girls in the forest, and you don’t think there’s something strange?”

   “I didn’t say that,” she started to argue, but her mother interrupted.

   “You watch your back, Nicky Haught. I didn’t raise you to be dragged about or cut down in some two-bit town, and you need to find out what’s going on here before somethin’ happens to you.” She paused before she added, “Or to her – your girl. Some’n worse.”

   Nicole sighed, and scraped her oatmeal into a bowl. She took it to the couch with another finger of whiskey.

 

* * *

 

 

   Willa Earp was somethin’ else. Trouble, most like, and an overly intense fondness for staring, but certainly somethin’ else entirely. And that made sense, if she’d been the girl Wynonna saved from the pine forest. If she’d been living in a commune fifteen years, she had all kinds of reasons to be a mess. And how Waverly told it, around frantic kisses in a hallway outside the Poker Extravaganza, she wasn’t tidy.

   Nicole’d never played poker in her life but she thought she could come to hate it, it and every one of its players, when Waverly had had to pull away from her for the final time and actually go help at the front desk, the way she’d been threatening to for the last half hour.

   But that was dating the town’s darling, and it wasn’t so much Waverly’s pulling away as the look on her face when she’d done it. She’d worn that look when she arrived, when she’d told Nicole that Eve wasn’t Eve but her sister Willa, when she’d admitted that things weren’t exactly running smooth. A look that said she was rebuilding her armour, getting ready to face the world, and it was only in the warm press between their two bodies that she’d been able to let it loose.

   Nicole thought about latin chanting, and a serial killer kidnapper, and dead bodies at the Earp house. She thought about Willa Earp, back from the dead, and when she went to the station she spent a half hour at the range and then polished every inch of her gun.

   She didn’t hear from Waverly that night. Not til one am, anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

   There was something about the way Waverly carried herself when she walked in. She had said yes to a tea, but then only stared at it when Nicole brought it to her, running a finger endlessly around the rim where it sat on the coffee table. On the couch, she sat stiff and upright, moving with the exaggerated caution of a drunk, or someone in shock. And she hadn’t said a word, not since Nicole’d offered the tea.

   She took a deep breath, then sat on the couch by Waverly. Her head turned slightly, but she didn’t say anything or make eye contact. Nicole let out that deep breath and then took her hand, held it lightly with one of her own and ran the other up the length of her arm and then her shoulder. Around her neck, down the other arm, and then felt gently over the extent of her back.

   She found it when she ran her hands evenly over each of Waverly’s sides, the woman flinching when her gentle diagnostics reached a spot high on her right side. Nicole looked up from where she’d knelt on the floor between Waverly’s feet, meeting her eyes and receiving permission in a shallow nod.

   The injury, when she pulled Waverly’s shirt up, was long and shallow. It’d been clumsily cleaned and dressed already, the tape pulling unevenly at Waverly’s skin even before she tugged up an end and edged it away from her body.

   Waverly winced in response, but she met Nicole’s gaze evenly.

   “I got a little shot,” she said. She bit her lip before she added, “I think I need to tell you what’s going on in Purgatory.”

 

* * *

 

 

   Wanting to know the truth was one thing, but Nicole wasn’t about to leave Waverly’s injury untended. They’d compromised, Nicole silently thanking the academy’s insistence on first aid procedures as she’d cleaned and redressed the gouge while Waverly explained.

   When she’d finished, she tugged Waverly’s shirt back down and sat by her on the couch. The story took a lot longer than the first aid, and when she’d finished Nicole leaned over and took a mouthful of the now cold cup of tea that still sat on the coffee table. It was vile, but she needed the moment to process Waverly’s tale. Because revenants and witches and Wynonna’s absurd gun were one thing, but the later part of the story had been Waverly stumbling over trying to explain Willa, and how despite herself she was doubting her.

   “Okay,” she said eventually, and Waverly’s eyebrows shot to the top of her face.

   “Okay? Really? I come bursting in here in the middle of the night and tell you that this town’s infested with demons, and you say okay?”

   Nicole shrugged. “It ain’t like I hadn’t worked out there was somethin’ goin’ on, Wave. First time I drove past your homestead I think I ran over a demon chicken.”

   Waverly’s eyes shot up to hers, disappointed. “You’re making fun of me.”

   “I’m not, and you wouldn’t say that if you’d seen the mess it made of my grille. Feathers for days.” She paused, letting go of the levity and seeking a more balanced way forward. “Besides. It isn’t like… well, I have some experience with the dead coming back.”

   Waverly cocked her head, face curious. At the same time, she reached for Nicole’s hand, taking it in her own and playing with her fingertips.

   “I hope that isn’t a way of telling me you’ve got your own curse following you around,” she murmured, and Nicole smiled ruefully.

   “No, it’s just… well, since I moved to Purgatory, I keep talking to my mother. She keeps telling me things, warning me about,” _you_ , “things, people, to watch out for. She said something was going on with you and Wynonna. Even Willa.”

   Waverly’s fingers traced lines over her knuckles, her thumb circling up to her wrist and back down. “That’s – odd, but I don’t see…”

   “Waverly, my mother died a month before I finished at the academy.”

   Her fingers stuttered to a stop. Froze, trembled, where they pressed against Nicole’s own.

   “What?”

   “She died five months ago. I went to the funeral a couple weeks before I moved here.”

   “And she’s been warning you about things since you got here?”

   Nicole looked up, to the corner of the room where her mother liked to hover. Near the open plan kitchen and away from the windows, although she could find no reason for the preference. She gave Nicole a long look, then faded from view like a radio signal too far from the station.

   “All the time,” Nicole answered. She paused, remembering. “I think… I think she woke me up in the ditch, that time. When Wynonna and I…” she trailed off.

   “When the Jack of Knives kidnapped you,” Waverly filled in, calmer than she had a right to be. “Well, that’s good. Probably means she wants to help us.”

   That thought hadn’t even crossed Nicole’s mind, although probably it should have. She let it go, Waverly clearly had more experience with this kind of thing.

   “I guess so.”

   She gave Waverly a sidelong look, noting again her pyjamas. With the background she’d given her, it was clear now that she’d snuck out, not wanting to explain to either of her sisters. As she watched, Waverly raised her hand, covering her mouth for a huge yawn. She laughed, and got to her feet, offering her hand to Waverly.

   “Well, come on then,” she prompted when Waverly only gave her a curious look. “S’… three in the morning, and demons or not, I have to work tomorrow.”

   Waverly opened her mouth as if to apologise, then closed it. She took Nicole’s hand, and let herself be pulled upright and then into her arms.

   “And I don’t much like this thing where you’re getting’ shot, even ‘a little’,” Nicole added. “I think you’d better let me hold onto you for a bit, until I feel better.”

   Waverly beamed her shy grin, her eyes darting down and over and quickly to and from Nicole’s. Then she braced herself on Nicole’s shoulder, and reached up to kiss her, quick and sweet.

   “That seems fair,” she said. “I mean, if your mother’s been warning you, it sounds like there might be something big coming. So, probably, we should get some cuddling in ahead of time, make sure you’re all rested and ready for things.”

   Nicole tugged her down the hallway, nudging her into the door of her bedroom and then between the sheets. Following her, she wrapped herself around Waverly, head to toe and face in her hair, reaching up to kiss her sweetly again.

   It wasn’t how she’d planned to have Waverly in her bed, not for the first time. And she hated the circumstances that had brought her there, the sense of distance from her own family. But Waverly was right. Something big was probably coming, and so she kissed Waverly again, shoring up good things against the bad to come.   

  

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this! You should leave me a comment below or follow me on tumblr for more wlw stuff! Geoclaire.tumblr.com


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